48. So not quite there but I suspect I'll be gigging in this band at 50, god willing.
I hadn't drummed for about a decade. Four years back my old band buddy from the 80s suggested we reform the band for a last hurrah. The idea was just to do some jamming. Not gigs.
Three weeks and two rehearsals later the chap who ran the rehearsal studio heard us, and booked us in for a gig at the quaintly named "Guzzling Goose" near to us. We were heard by a local muso in there who runs the Witchwood live music venue in Ashton U Lyne who casually asked "do you want to play a support slot at the weekend with the UK Subs".
The UK Subs were our boyhood heroes. So we said "ahum...well.....go on then". We got to then play a half hour set of the originals we'd managed to knock together in literally weeks, and three or four covers. And we got to chat at length with Charlie Harper, and in my case with their drummer Jamie Oliver.
(I'm totally digressing, but I turned up for the gig and it was on a wooden floor. Of course I was as nervous as hell and shitting it about my drums sliding when, following his sound check, Jamie heard me mention my lack of a drum carpet and promptly removed his entire kit off stage just so that I could use his carpet).
Half way through our set, the UK Subs are out of their dressing room listening and singing along to I Wanna Be Your Dog and Blitkrieg Bop....what a buzz !!
Subsequently we have supported many of our childhood heroes. Stiff Little Fingers, Sham69, Bad Manners, the Buzzcocks, UK Subs on three occasions. And played a number of festivals in our own right, playing our own originals set.
It's the best feeling in the world being THE entertainment rather than being entertained. There's a pile of shit that goes with it of course (we focus on originals and won't cop out and play just covers) but we play half a dozen shit gigs for that ONE fantastic gig which makes it all worth while. Such is the 'lot' of the semi-professional punk originals band